The house at Ampasiet - Paula Kogel

When Paula Kogel was young, she fell passionately in love with a Dutch soldier and the couple moved to the Dutch East Indies to raise a family. Upon the outbreak of fighting in World War Two, the family moved to the suburb of Tjideng in Batavia. Their small two-bedroom house in the Ampasiet district is the setting for the book.When Japanese Armed Forces took control of the Dutch East Indies in March 1942, soldiers were immediately transported to POW slave labour camps such as the Burma Railway and the coal mines in Japan, while the civilian men, and later boys as young as 10, were removed from their families. The women and small children left behind were interned in camps, often fenced-off town districts, where they had to fend for themselves. In Tjideng, Paula and her two young sons were imprisoned in their own home, ultimately sharing their house at Ampasiet with 21 other prisoners, each allotted just 50cm of 'living space'. It was unbearably cramped, dehumanizing and tense and conditions deteriorated rapidly. Survival meant working together for the sake of the children. What shines through is the courage and strength Paula and her fellow internees showed in the face of such unbelievable cruelty.The book also tells the story of Paula's husband Jan, enduring transportation by the so called 'hell ships' to prison destinations, working on the railway and in the mines until the Atom bomb in August 1945 ended the war and saved his life.Paula was born in Germany in 1911. She had always filled her life with music, and when she returned to The Netherlands after the war she became a successful music teacher. She also toured the country with her puppet theatre, and brought much joy to her students and audiences alike. Always claiming that nobody would be able to kill her spirit, her eternal optimism was a quality that helped her survive the horrors of the Tjideng prison camp.The House at Ampasiet was originally published in Dutch in 2000 by Paula's daughter Lore Ridings, fulfilling her mother's dearest wish to have her story published.